Chapter 45
I fall asleep, somehow, because when I wake, the room is empty. I dress quickly and tie the new sheath to my hip, sliding the moonstone dagger home. I leave it outside my skirts, a small white flag after my cold response yesterday.
I swing the door wide, my chest lifting on reflex. It drops when I take in Dashol’s freckled face.
“Morning.” Dashol pushes off the wall. “Alaris asked me to fetch you.”
Dashol smiles as usual, but his jaw is dusted with stubble, and his usually bright eyes droop. His muscular shoulders are slumped.
“Is everything alright?”
“Eh.” Dashol’s shoulders pull up then down. “Noctus is hitting him a little hard this year.”
I blink. “I didn’t ask if Alaris is alright. Is Alaris alright?”
“Sorry, it was a long night. He’s fine.” He rubs his face. “He just needs…some time to adjust.”
High holidays make it harder for divinials to leash their powers, flame and waves and wind following every thought, every emotion. Plenty of burned linens needed stamping, and singed flesh needed healing around the palace on Embrus.
But by the look of him, Dashol didn’t sleep last night, and I can’t imagine what could happen to Alaris around Noctus that would keep Dashol up.
“But why—?”
“It’s nothing serious.” He waves his hand. “I think he just wants us to have a happy solstice celebration, and he knew he would bring down the party.”
I give him a look at the obvious lie.
“Don’t worry.” Dashol smiles, a little more sincerely this time. “It’s a holiday! There is a party tonight. And hey, no meeting today. Come on. A hot drink from the kitchen, then the aviary?”
The castle hums with solstice preparations: garlands strung, fires stoked, the smell of spices thick in the halls. As if this is just another holiday, instead of the beginning of the two-week period when Alaris will time his attack.
With hot mugs in hand, we face the bite of the outside air. Flurries of tiny snowflakes whirl, stinging my cheeks, even though the ground is bare. I hope it snows harder. The only other time I saw anything frozen fall from the sky was on my journey to Nyvos with Cantor.
“The festival starts at sundown,” Dashol says as he drops me with the hawks. “I’ll come get you.”
All day in the aviary, I lie on the fur-lined pallet, staring up at the light coming in through the turret’s windows, greeting hawks with absent-minded fingers as they swoop down.
One way or another, everything is going to change in the next two weeks.
At the meeting tomorrow, Alaris is probably going to pick the route, the roles, the final pieces.
If Nykiri doesn’t come through, and I can’t come up with better answers, Alaris is going to ride away based on guesses.
I flip over and hide my face in the fur. I can’t let that happen.
If Nykiri doesn’t deliver an oraculi by tomorrow, I’m going to have to trick Dashol into helping me search the castle. I can’t sit and wait.
Late afternoon, Dashol comes back. The sky is just hanging on to the last of the light as we cross the grounds, the hawks circling overhead. The distant sound of activity carries through the cold air. He walks me to the main courtyard, which is awash in lanterns and firelight.
The bonfire is taller than the men feeding it, throwing heat across the space.
Staff and crowds I assume are from neighboring towns have gathered, filling the grounds with celebration.
Carts serve food, dancers in black and white costumes whirl, and a play on stage shows a puppet Arastor flying through a night sky filled with silver cut-out stars, his typical four wings and short black hair on display.
Dashol starts toward the crowd, but I hang back. The hawks’ presence is the only way I can get near this party, but I still don’t want to get too close to anyone. The idea of moving through shadowed strangers, even with the hawks watching, is terrifying.
“You go ahead,” I say. “I’ll just stay here and watch for a while.”
“Are you sure?” The look on his face is so bereft, it makes me want to change my mind. “This is the best party all year. Karns would be so disappointed.”
That makes me laugh. “I doubt he’ll mind.”
“He can be surprisingly pouty.” Dashol grins. “You’ve seen some of our worst moments here. You should make some good memories here too.”
“I have plenty of good memories,” I say truthfully, the warmth in my chest a testament to it.
“Good to hear. Then at least let’s get you…
one second.” He trots off and I settle onto a log at the edge of the gathering.
He returns a few moments later with meat on a skewer, sprinkled with black salt.
“Are you sure I can’t tempt you to join in?
” he asks, wagging the meat under my nose like I’m a dog.
“I’m sure,” I say, still smiling. I accept the food.
“I’ll come get you to walk you back.”
“I’ll find my own way back, so don’t worry.” I’m fine as long as I’m outside, where the hawks can see me, and I don’t want to distract Dashol on his last night of fun. I’ll take a hawk on my shoulder into the castle if I have to.
“I’ll be just over there,” Dashol says. “Join me, if you don’t want to make Karns grumpier than he already is.”
I raise my skewer to him. “Have fun.”
He waves and disappears into the crowd.
I clutch my cloak tighter. Snow drifts through the firelight, catching gold at the edge of the flames.
The crowd cheers the puppet god as he banks through his paper stars.
It’s his night, Noctus, the longest dark of the year.
I grew up under the sun, raised to think Embrus was my time.
But cyralians don’t have a single high holiday.
All the holidays belong to Cyralia. Every solstice and every equinox, every turn of the wheel is theirs.
Or ours. The turning of time itself surges our power.
So tonight is my night too. Do I feel it, then? Do I feel something different?
In the capital, the seasons are so stunted, I barely noticed their passing. Every day felt practically the same.
All this past fall, I’ve felt alive. Awake.
Ready to work, crisp morning air invigorating me.
But I thought that was due to novelty…and necessity.
I’ve been on the run, doing things I never imagined, rolling up my sleeves to step into new lives.
I felt different on Somnus, wild energy coursing through me, but I thought that was because I was closer to Delvara’s kin, or maybe because dreams of death made me so desperate to live.
I’ve spent most of this winter hurt and healing, which has pulled me toward every fur and fire I can find.
Like this one, throwing heat across my face while the cold bites at my back.
The cold doesn’t bother me…it just makes me want to be cozy.
Even now, I want the fur-lined pallet in the aviary or the cover in Alaris’s bedroom wrapped around me.
Is this me being cyralian, or is this how everyone feels when they aren’t locked in bright stasis?
Flakes drift past, and I think of the way cyralians swirled flurries with a twirl of a wrist. With the skewer in one hand, I try a small flick of my fingers, willing the snow to gather and spin for me.
Nothing happens. The flakes fall the way all the flakes fall.
If there weren’t people nearby, I might stand and sway, and see if I could coax the winter air into a dance with me. But even if no one is paying attention, the hawks are watching, and with them, maybe Alaris. So I tuck my hand inside my cloak and just enjoy the chill.
I let my eyes drift over the crowd as I chew the steaming meat.
The grounds are bustling. I watch long enough to find a few familiar faces, Flora and Walder among them.
I spot Siro and Karns together, the similarity in their features only tempered by her slightly feral grin and his stern look through his glasses.
But there’s one face I keep searching for, my gaze pulled to every tall figure. I don’t have to look long to be sure: Alaris isn’t here. Maybe the energy of the holiday is still too much for him.
Dashol appears next to Karns and slings a bulky arm around him, speaking to Siro.
My chest hums at seeing them together, despite Dashol’s noble efforts to keep himself at a distance.
He smiles at something Siro says, then frowns when it looks like the joke might have been turned back on him, which makes her throw her head back and laugh.
It tugs my mouth up too. They look like old friends.
My lips fall. Dashol is facing death. How many of these people know what’s coming in the next few weeks? How many are enjoying their last party before they pick up swords and ride for the capital to commit treason?
But if they don’t act, everyone here dies anyway.
I need the oraculi.
As if summoned, a figure moves to the edge of the crowd, her dark cropped hair instantly recognizable. Nykiri.
She doesn’t even glance at me, but I’m pretty sure this is my cue to approach.
I put down the skewer and make my way toward her. I glance at the sky, willing the hawks to keep a close watch, as much as I want them to look away.
I sidle up to her. Her golden eyes stay on the fire.
“Having a good solstice, Lyra?” she drawls, emphasizing the lie in my name.
“I’ve been waiting,” I whisper. “Did you get it?”
“Not even a hello?” She clicks her tongue. “I’m the one taking a risk here, and the palace-born girl skips straight to business?”
“I don’t think politeness will change your opinion of me. Well?”
“He did take pains to hide them. It was almost enough to make me wonder if I should reconsider taking one…” She waits a breath, just to make me sweat. “But of course I got it.”
I exhale my relief.
She bumps her shoulder into mine. At the same time, she slips something into my hand. I tuck it quickly into my pocket under my cloak.
She starts to stroll away but pauses and speaks out of the side of her mouth. “If you lied to me about what you’re using that for, you’re dead. Otherwise, don’t die. And remember: I was never involved.”
She disappears into the crowd.